BÀI 1June means one more big test f

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June means one more big test for many students finishing college -- a test of the job market. Wish them luck. Americans age twenty to twenty-four faced an unemployment rate in May of fourteen and seven-tenths percent. That was five percentage points higher than the national rate.
This week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said his "best guess" is for a continued economic recovery. But the central bank chief expects unemployment to remain high for some time because of slow job creation. So where does that leave this year's graduates?
The National Association of Colleges and Employers says about one-fourth of those who applied for a job have found one. NACE says that is up a little from last year. But the number is down sharply from two thousand seven, the year before the financial crash. Starting pay is also down.
Josh Safran graduated from American University in Washington with a business degree. He is still looking for a job.
JOSH SAFRAN: "Once you get noticed by a company, it gets a lot easier, but it’s so hard to get noticed because there’s so many people looking for so few jobs."
One way to get noticed is through an internship program, says Reuben Smith-Vaughn, another graduate of American University.
REUBEN SMITH-VAUGHN: "I know I personally got my job that way. And the people that worked there before me got their jobs that way. So I think it’s a key when getting a job."
Internships may offer little or no money. Some students even pay for them. But NACE says ninety-two percent of the employers it asked had plans to hire interns this year.
The Occupational Outlook Handbook published by the Labor Department offers job market predictions through twenty eighteen. The highest growth is expected in biomedical engineering.
Twenty-two year old Sarah Kramer just got her degree in biomedical engineering from Columbia University in New York. She found a job with a major consulting company in Washington. But her search was not easy.
SARAH KRAMER: "I started in August before my senior year. And I set up appointments with career services. I applied to about a hundred and fifty jobs. I went on maybe fifteen interviews."
Ms. Kramer says many of her friends have not found jobs. Many have chosen to go to graduate school instead. But she has suggestions for students entering their final year of college who want a job when they graduate.
SARAH KRAMER: "Well, advice for a rising senior is to start early. Take advantage of your career services at your school as much as you can. And don’t give up, and just keep applying to as many jobs as you can.”
Josh Safran says he may have to do what a growing number of recent college graduates are doing.
JOSH SAFRAN: “Worst-case scenario, if I don’t find a job by the end of August, I move back with my parents."
And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, with reporting by Mike DeFabo. I'm Mario Ritter.
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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
In recent years, Bill Gates has given financial support to improve American education.
.Late last year, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Measures of Effective Teaching project. The project tests new ways to recognize what makes a good teacher.
Its goal is to help educators and policymakers identify and support good teaching.
The study is being carried out in public school systems in seven American cities. Thousands of teachers volunteered to take part. They agreed to have their classes recorded on video, but only for observation by expert researchers.
Last spring, the project collected digital videos of thirteen thousand lessons in the classrooms taught by the teachers. They were in grades four through nine.
Researchers also collected information from students. They asked students to report their opinions of each teacher’s classroom. Students were also tested in mathematics, English and biology.
Officials recently released early results of the project study. The report says teachers’ past success in raising student scores on state tests is one of the strongest signs of their ability to do so again. This is known as a teacher’s “value-added.”
The teachers with the highest value-added scores on state tests also help students understand math or show reading ability.
The results also say students know effective teaching when they experience it. The students gave comments on whether or not their teachers cared about them. They also gave opinions on how much teachers controlled or managed student behavior in the classroom.
The report found that classrooms where students reported positive experiences were more likely to show greater learning gains.
Another finding shows that combining different sources of information helps administrators provide better comments and suggestions to teachers. In many cases, administrators had been basing their comments on student test scores only.
The Measures of Effective Teaching project continues through twenty twelve when final results will be released. Researchers plan to test a new measure that examines what a teacher knows about how to teach a subject. Experts say these findings could also help create better training and development for teachers.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Lawan Davis. Join us online at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also join us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube at VOA Learning English. I'm Steve Ember.
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This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
Old age may not sound exciting. But recent findings offer good news for older people and for people worried about getting older.
Researchers found that people become happier and experience less worry after they reach the age of fifty. In fact, they say by the age of eighty-five, people are happier with their life than they were when they were eighteen years old.
The findings came from a survey of more than three hundred forty thousand adults in the United States. The Gallup Organization questioned them by telephone in two thousand eight. At that time, the people were between the ages of eighteen and eighty-five.
The researchers asked questions about emotions like happiness, sadness and worry. They also asked about mental or emotional stress.
Arthur Stone in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Stony Brook University in New York led the study. His team found that levels of stress were highest among adults between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-five.
The findings showed that stress levels dropped sharply after people reached their fifties.
Happiness was highest among the youngest adults and those in their early seventies. The people least likely to report feeling negative emotions were those in their seventies and eighties.
The study also showed that men and women have similar emotional patterns as they grow older. However, women at all ages reported more sadness, stress and worry than men.
The findings appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers say they do not know why happiness increases as people get older. One theory is that, as people grow older, they grow more thankful for what they have and have better control of their emotions. They also spend less time thinking about bad experiences.
Professor Stone says the emotional patterns could be linked to changes in how people see the world, or maybe even changes in brain chemistry.
The researchers also considered possible influences like having young children, being unemployed or being single. But they found that influences like these did not affect the levels of happiness and well-being related to age.
And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Brianna Blake. Tell us what you think about the relationship between happiness and age. You can post comments on our website, voaspecialenglish.com, or on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. I'm Barbara Klein.